Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but people are complaining about both PvE and PvP aspects in a PvEvP game.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4’s DMZ mode is the latest extraction shooter to have the discussion about how the mode should work spark up just days after being available. The full MW4 game launched today, but DMZ has been available in early access since Tuesday, and the debate is raging everywhere on social media like Reddit and more.
The concept of DMZ is simple: deploy into a big map called Hajin with a number of other squads, grab good loot, fight with AI enemies, do missions for XP and money, and sometimes deal with enemy players. For some people, there’s not enough PvP. For others, there’s too much, and they feel as though their experience is being ruined by the PvP aspect of it.
If it’s a familiar story to you, that’s probably because this same discussion has been had with every single game in the genre known to man. Escape From Tarkov players asked for it and got it; ARC Raiders and Marathon players asked for it and are getting it in some form. And now, DMZ, fresh off release, is ready for the conversation.
DMZ devs told me last week that they want the mode to be “approachable” for all players, but as the mode takes shape over the following months, things could always change when it comes to keeping the playerbase sated. For now, they like the balance they have.
“Being able to run away and then come back 10 minutes later and still get your teammates up is a dynamic that we haven’t seen elsewhere,” Infinity Ward’s multiplayer creative director Geoffrey Smith said. “From bringing your player back with MIA [to buy back Operators you lose in battle] and progressing, continuing to progress through. We’ve done so many kind of post-mortems and in-depth things of what should we do and how should we adjust things to make it fun and approachable.”
But, as ever, CoD is an evolving, live-service game. So a PvE mode is not entirely out of the question, and Smith said as much when I asked that, as well.
“If there’s a real desire for PvE content, we’d have to have a conversation about it and see what’s healthiest for the game,” he said. And that desire is already popping up on social media within the game’s first few days.
The simple fact is this: extraction shooters have PvE, and they have PvP. They are not mutually exclusive. If I don’t feel like dealing with other players, I don’t play PvPvE games. I’ll play something else. I also think that sweaty Warzone players who want DMZ to be their own Ground War map are in the wrong. But that’s why I don’t envy devs of games like this because it is nearly impossible to strike a balance that keeps everybody happy.
